The disclosed subject matter relates to vehicle transmissions that include multiple gears or gear missions, and methods of use and manufacture thereof. More particularly, the disclosed subject matter relates to methods and apparatus that place and hold a vehicle transmission in a certain gear.
Related art vehicles include manual and automatic transmissions that provide various gears or gear selection conditions, such as Drive, Reverse, Park, and Neutral. Many of these related art manual and automatic transmissions include a manually operated gear shifter that enables a vehicle operator to select a certain gear selection condition, such as Neutral where the transmission output shaft can be decoupled from the transmission input shaft so that the vehicle can be moved independently of the operating state of the power source driving the transmission. This gear shifter is typically a mechanical device that is disposed for actuation by an individual operating the vehicle.